Valentine's Day Craft

January 30, 2011

These Valentine gnomes present your loved one with a hand-made heart pin!

Here is the two-part tutorial for you to follow to make some for your family and friends!

.: Part one ~ Creating felt heart pins :.

With a small piece of cardboard folded in half, trace half of a heart along the folded side. Next you will cut this folded half-heart shape out completely. Open to reveal a complete and symmetricalcardboard heart template that will help us in the steps to follow!

Begin by tracing the cardboard heart template twice on each sheet of felt.

Cut out two hearts in each color.

Next take out several complementary colors ofembroidery thread.

You can embroider your hearts or leave them plain. Now begin stitching up your heart andleave a small opening to stuff them with wool.

Fill your felt heart with wool until it is quite full. We used a knitting needle to ensure the hearts were very evenly stuffed.

Finish stitching up your hearts. Make sure to hide the last stitch by sewing through just one of the felt sheets and tying off your thread inside the heart.

Next stitch a pin back onto the (upper) back of the heart.

.:Set aside your heart pins and prepare for Part II of this tutorial:.

.: Part Two ~ Creating Valentine Gnomes :.

Set out a pinecone with a thin point to the top of it. Place a medium-sized wooden bead over the point of the pinecone, securing it with glue. This will form the head of the Valentine Gnome.

Begin by cutting a triangle shape from felt. This will create your Valentine Gnome's hat.

Wrap the triangle shape around the wooden bead. You can make alterations accordingly until your gnome hat fits.

Now begin stitching up your hat by folding the triangle in half and stitching up the back.

Your gnome hat is now complete. Secure it to the wooden bead with a bit of glue.

.: Securing the heart pin to the Valentine gnome .:

Now take a length of embroidery floss and loop it through your (closed) felt heart pin back. The long lengths of thread can then be wrapped around the pinecone and tied in the back. (Leaveloose enough so that the heart pin can be taken off to be worn.)

This little gnome is now ready to gift your Valentine with a sweet heart pin that can be taken off and worn while the Valentine gnome visits your nature table!

January 23, 2011

You may notice that the winter months bring about quite a bit of crafting for my family. We try to enjoy creating each and every day. Many of you know of my affinity for stones! Like some of you I have quite a collection of stones collected from the ocean this past summer...

I am usually one who will use materials found near-at-hand or materials that can be recycled. Today we mixed things we had on hand and something that caught my eye at the craft store!

.: Choosing our stones for the project! :.

We gathered up a few stones from the collection and placed them in a bowl. These stones were chosen for their smoothness and size so that the images we transferred onto them would fit proportionately.

.: The sheet of transferable images :.

I purchased this sheet of transfers from the craft store. Some of the images appealed to me as I imagined them transferred onto the stones.

.: By rubbing over the image it transfers onto the object :.

I started with a few and soon all three children were gathered around to choose their own images and transfer them onto the stones! The simple process entails placing the transfer onto the stone and with the stick provided you rub over the image and it transfers itself.

.: Butterflies hold significant meaning for me, this one is beautiful! :.

.: I appreciate this little bird sitting atop a stone! :.

The butterfly and bird stone are two of my favorites--they make me happy and now live in my kitchen!

.: A sweet pairing of stones :.

The bird and bird cage made for a fun pair! I think these stones would make beautiful Valentine gifts for friends, or as party favors!

.: These stones are now placed in unexpected spots around the house! :.

I appreciate discovering them in unexpected places around the house. It makes me smile to see their simple beauty paired with nature!

.: Admiring their work! :.

.: My favorite stone which holds symbolic meaning for me :.

Ginny, who writes the blog Sweet Myrtle wrote a lovely post that I enjoyed reading today. She spoke of choosing a word to focus on in this new year. Ginny wrote a long list of words that bring inspiration to her before choosing one word to focus on.

This resonated with me because over this past year my family adopted the mantra: "Be here now." Many times I have pondered this mantra and it rang true for me in times when I needed it.

.: A warming word bringing peace to my heart :.

I know firsthand that writing a positive or inspirational word on a stone is powerful. Wouldn't this be a great project to create a few stones with life-affirming words on them andplace around your home to bring more encouragement, joy,and mindfulness into your day?

January 21, 2011

We have enjoyed a beautiful week full of crafting! Many cheerfully colored hearts have been drawn that now adorn surprise Valentine cards. Today while the snow softly fell we decided it would be a perfect time to set out glass jars full with liquid color! Shades of red swirled together in the water and onto our papers to make a lovely pink. Yellows paired with red manifested orange and other delicious colors in between!

Today we created lovely watercolor paintings that we cut into heart shapes to fashion a Valentine garland that I will happily leave out not only on Valentine's day butall year long!

.: A tray full with hearts cut from watercolor paintings :.

.: Taking out thread and tape to create the garland :.

After cutting out the desired number of hearts we took out thread and tape...

.: Setting out the pattern for the garland :.

Then we sequenced the hearts in the pattern we desired for them to be strung together in.

.: Placing thread across each heart and securing with tape :.

After flipping over each heart we set thread across each heart and began taping it in place until we acquired a garland of hearts to the preferred length.

.: Decorating the home in color and with love! :.

Next came the fun part of decorating the house in cheerfully-colored hearts!